Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months, and months turn to years. Five years is how long a young girl laying in her comfy bed had been wandering. Five years since her parents murdered and her home and nation burned and annexed like a forgotten child’s toy. The memories were vivid, the smell of smoke and ash, of iron and blood. The bodies laying candidly in their beds. The shrieks and cries of her siblings and the hooves of the horses.

...

“Awake, Priscilla!” A loud bass shook her violently from her bedroom. The stench of iron pierced through the air.
The bed-headed young girl, no older than ten, sat up rubbing the sleep from her eyes, “It is midnight, can you not let me sleep?” It was dark, but the voice uncanny, it was Sir Roland, the knight protector of her father, the king.

“I cannot, my lady,” Hollowed screams and clashes of metal startled the little princess, “We need to move, NOW!” The chainmail clad man whisked up the little girl as though a doll and dashed into the halls of the great palace. Howls and wails of the dead and dying bounced through long halls and narrow corridors, piercing the ears and maddening the mind of a helpless girl.

“No, no please don’t, I’m a prin-” A loud smack of flesh and the horrid sound of coughing came from a particular room.

The maniacal laughs of a group of men. Priscilla and Sir Roland listened and waited for an opening, “We don’t give a shit if you’re a prince. You’re just a cock sleeve for us lonely men.”

“Bro-” A firm hand covered her mouth with the scarred man putting a finger to his thin lips.

“Come on, men, let’s turn this prince into a princess.” A loud synchronized yell of callous agreement bellowed from the room, followed by a screech of dissent. Priscilla couldn’t see but from the shivering of her knight protector, she could tell that whatever was in that room was not human. The knight’s knuckles were white around his sword. He took Priscilla instead and ran.

The palace grounds were full of soldiers enveloped with leather armor, chainmail, and a variety of weapons. Banners of a ring of cinder flew against the gentle winds of the starry night.

“Damn! The Cinder Empires! I should have known.” Banging a hand against a marble wall. Roland still shivering from the previous encounter. The brawny man crouched down to the little princess, “Okay, Priscilla, we have to get through that mass of men. When I say run, use what I taught you and run out of here.”

“But, what if I-”

“No what ifs, whatever happens. You have to escape.”

The little girl nodded. She hugged the knight protector, “I love you, Uncle Roland.”

The man gave a sad smiled and patted the girl’s head, “I know, my little Priscilla.”

The two sneaked passed the lines of soldiers and reached a small clearing. A voice echoed, “Hey, someone’s escaping! Archers!”

“RUN!!!”

“FIRE!” A volley of arrows arced into the sky. Roland pounced onto his lady as the volley reached its mark.
With a last ounce of strength, he pushed his lady out from underneath his dying body, “Es…ca…pe.” Sir Roland Ventus the first was no more.

“No.” She breathed as the tears fell upon her cheeks like a waterfall from the cliffs of cataracta. The clouds swiftly covered the starry night as darkness shrouded the princess. The gales of revenge blew with the coming storm. A storm which mimicked the heart of a coming queen.

...

A malnourished and ragged girl sat on a corner by an alley listlessly. Her once brilliant blue eyes are now as rotten as a dead fish. She waits with a tin can placed by her thigh as her stomach growls viciously. Prolong hunger gave her the shivers. It’s been days since she last had a decent meal, eating from the reeds and flower of the fields.

Days since of the nightmare that still haunts were with a scar that only filled the girl with an insatiable vengeance. A scar that would have to quell for now. Now was a time of surviving. Something the girl was never taught.

A potbelly knight came to her with a pouch full of coin, bulge in his trousers, “Hey girlie, I see that you’re close to dying there. If you let me have my way with you. I’ll give you this bag of coin.”

The girl looked to her benefactor with solemn rotten eyes.

“I am a fair man and I do have a heart, just an unitchable urge, an urge that the church of Cinder would crucify me for.”

The girl faintly nodded her stomach and instinct called for her to take the money while her pride told her to scoff at the knight. The instinct to survive overtook pride, the girl took the coin and followed the man into the dark secluded alley. Where innocence died.

A pouch full of coin and an appetite to match, Priscilla took to an inn and ate a queen’s lunch. She slept a good night and found that her pouch wasn’t as full as she thought. So, she went to the knight again. The knight, pleased to see that his unitchable urge would be itched again. He gave her double the coin than before.

She quickly learned that there were many men who’d loved to have her way with her. Sure, she didn’t exactly like it and it hurt like hells, but the job allowed her to live and thrive along with gathering information.

The banners of Cinder came again, a smaller force than before, but not any less effective. They came and devoured the town again, causing the girl to flee.

She wandered from city to city, town to town. Making money from men and living like a queen. She came to the city of Bruma in the north. Cold was the best word to describe it. The winter had come and with it, the cold and snow. Gigantic glacier walls surrounded Bruma, signifying the use of water magic.

Bruma is where she found a popsicle. Well, a raggedy, malnourished girl with a bandage tied around her eyes. Priscilla took pity upon the girl and decided to save her from her popsicle fate with a bit of magic she knew from her days as a princess.

Priscilla took a smooth stone, a skinny brush, and a knife. With the knife, she pricked her finger, with the brush she dipped it into the seeping blood and precisely painted an intricate circuit upon the stone. She used that to heal the blind girl’s wounds if she had any. The spell was heal minor wounds. Something she was taught if she ever got injured. Then create another spell on a piece of parchment and applied it to the popsicle’s feet, hands, and face. Warming and defrostbiting the areas.

Moments passed when the small, malnourished, ragged girl awakened, “Welcome back, small one.” The future queen of Sylphia knew something great was ahead.

Hey, everyone, life's been a bit crazy for me. I did a writing workshop, so I'm going to put the stories I created during it